Alexithymia (I Am Mercury series - Book 7)

By Grant Piercy

The truth shall finally be revealed in the journals of Alex Graves. What were his relationships with Marion, Daz, Rose, Eva, and the elusive Ryan Hoffman? Why was he imprisoned for murder? And what do the journals mean for the future? This is the seventh novella of the I AM MERCURY series.

I AM MERCURY is a nine-part serial suspense thriller about visions of other worlds, the stories we tell ourselves, and the things we do for love. Each short novella in the series features a different narrator, a different lens through which to view the events of the series. After the riot at Yorkville State Pen, journalists and spies spar off, protestors march forward, and dangerous games play out. What do these interlocking stories mean for each other, and how will they coalesce?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant Piercy
• Release date: Jun 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370872473

Grant Piercy

Grant Piercy is the author of THE ERASED SAGA and I AM MERCURY. He lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio.

Book preview

ALEXITHYMIA

a novella

I AM MERCURY, BOOK VII

By Grant Piercy

Published by Grant Piercy at Smashwords

Copyright © 2017 Grant Piercy

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

Cover art by Grant Piercy

Edited by Emily Zapp

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

dramatis personae

epigraph

(segue)

1. song to the siren

2. side of the road

3. slow burn

4. cassettes

5. failing to byzantium

6. blood

7. teeth

(segue)

about the author

Dramatis Personae

- Alex Graves, an abecedarian

- Marion Olander, a sphinx

- Daz Turner, a philosopher

- Ryan Hoffman, a theorist

- Rose Pozniak, a lover

- Eva Kowalski, a friend

- Frank Mayhew, a competitor

- Tom Stockton, a journalist

- Tyrrell Garrett, a journalist

epigraph:

"There are many kinds of eyes.

Even the Sphinx has eyes—therefore there must be many kinds of truths,

and consequently there can be no truth."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (Book III, 540. 1888)

(segue)

He kicks his feet up on the desk and continues sifting through the notebooks, not even sure what exactly he’s supposed to be looking for.

The bullpen is rowdy and he’s constantly interrupted by the different writers and photographers and editors who want to pass him congratulatory hatred. He can read it in their eyes. They might say something along the lines of, Stockton! Really loved the story. Unbelievable! But the eyes tell all; the eyes speak truth.

I can’t believe it was you. What a load of horseshit.

It’s hard enough to make it in a dying industry. Sure it’s a third tier newspaper in a major market competing with two marquee names, likely to go extinct within three years. It’s not even that technology has killed the newspaper. It’s more that politics and clickbait have murdered journalism altogether. You have to go with what you’re given.

To get your name out there, you have to go out on a limb. The author and the story are inseparable.

He’s tracking this story with the tenacity of a bloodhound. Garrett is out there on the Olander angle. With no further leads, it’s the notebooks. It’s all in the notebooks.

1. song to the siren

(From the prison journals of Alex Graves)

When I was sixteen, I killed myself on Christmas.

Is that when it went wrong? I suppose you could make the argument that it was no decision of mine. It was just one of several possible outcomes.

You ever think of all the possibilities? But they all spring from the double-helix of two parents quantum entangled through universes. Physicists tend to forget something when discussing multiple realities—in each universe where you exist, the exact sperm and exact ovum that combined to create you had to come in contact at the same time across all time and space. Imagine that; how many different ways can the same two people come in contact at the same time and combine to make the same person? It’s unfathomable.

But no, it’s not my parents’ fault. It’s not God or the Universe or whatever you want to call it either. A lifetime is a consequence of all the choices one makes. Realities branch like veins from an artery.

Marion, it began with Marion.

Marion Olander; two words together that send shivers down my spine still, that feel like ice on my tongue.

I’m not sure what brought us together. Stumbling through the hallways in high school, spinning in cliques and dancing around one another. Daz was convinced she had a crush on him even though he was dating someone else, a friend of hers. These things start so innocently.

So banal.

You couldn’t call it double-dating when we began talking. Daz was with Tamara (I don’t remember her last name). Strange relationship, and watching through my virgin eyes it seemed twisted. Yeah, I totally think she has a thing for me, he’d say about Marion, whom I’d never met. Teenage male braggadocio. Maybe it was true, or maybe it was just to impress the ever-naïve Alex Graves.

I think I met her when she was carrying books to her locker and she stopped to banter with him. She wore braces she seemed too old for. She